Handel - Water Music - Classic FM Become a VIP Handel - Water Music Handel 's Water Music is made up of three orchestral suites, written for an outdoor performance for King George I on the Thames. Handel composed his wonderfully jolly Water Music around 1717. and it was first performed on 17 July that year, after George I requested a concert on the River Thames. The king watched from the royal barge with various dukes and duchesses as the 50 musicians played nearby. The suites are pretty easy on the ear and jauntily life-affirming. Exactly the sort of music you would like to waft you down the River Thames if you were a king with the weight of government on your shoulders; in fact, the king enjoyed the music so much, he asked the musicians to play the suites three times over the course of the trip down the river. Packed with catchy and famous tunes (you'll probably recognise at least one!), each movement is based on a dance style. There's actually no set order for the suites to be performed, but it's generally agreed the first is in F major, the second is in D, and the third is in G. It’s Suite No.

1 that is the most popular. In eleven sections, it begins with a beautiful French-style Ouverture, continues through a jaunty 'Bourée', a stately 'Minuet' and ends with the grand 'Alla Hornpipe'. It's often paired with Handel's other celebratory royal river piece, Music for the Royal Fireworks , written in 1749 for George II. He was obviously well practised at writing music that would carry when performed outside, using bassoons, horns and trumpets to help the sound carry. George Frideric Handel George Frideric Handel The Water Music in Three Suites Complete Handel's Water Music is a collection of short orchestral pieces composed to serenade King George I of England during a boating party on the Thames river in 1717. The music is grouped into three suites, each featuring different instrumental colors and having its own distinct character. The individual movements that comprise these suites include overtures, fanfares, instrumental arias, and dances. Tracks: 1. The Water Music Suite I Overture 2. The Water Music Suite I Adagio e staccato 3.

The Water Music Suite I Allegro, Andante, Allegro 4. The Water Music Suite I Allegro 5. The Water Music Suite I Air 6. The Water Music Suite I Minuet 7. The Water Music Suite I Bourree 8. The Water Music Suite I Hornpipe 9. The Water Music Suite I Allegro 10. The Water Music Suite II Allegro 11. The Water Music Suite II Alla Hornpipe 12. The Water Music Suite II Minuet 13. The Water Music Suite II Lentement 14. The Water Music Suite II Bourree 15. The Water Music Suite III Sarabande 16. The Water Music Suite III Rigaudon 17. The Water Music Suite III Minuet 18. The Water Music Suite III Gigue 19. Handel’s Early Career 20. Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite I Movements I & II 21. Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite I Movement III 22. Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite I Movements IV – VI 23. Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite I Movements VII – IX 24.

Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite II Movements I – V 25. Listener’s Guide to The Water Music Suite III Movements I – IV 26. Handel in England George Frideric Handel was born in 1685, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti, in the central German city of Halle. His family was not musical, and Handel’s father initially tried to discourage his son’s musical interests, hoping that he would pursue a more dependable career in law. Handel, however, displayed not only an exceptional talent but a strong will, developing his skill as a keyboard player despite paternal objections. When Handel was just 10 years old, during a visit to a relative employed at the court of Johann Adolph, Duke of Weissenfels, his playing on the organ made such an impression that the Duke financed the boy’s music studies. Handel seems never to have considered seriously his father’s wish that he study law. In any event, music soon claimed him. At age 17 he obtained a position as organist in one of Halle’s principal churches.

A year later, in 1803, he departed his native town and for the next three years worked in Hamburg, the German city most devoted to opera. Like many composers of his day, Handel was eager to make his mark in the theater, and he was fortunate to obtain employment as a violinist and harpsichordist in the opera orchestra. The harpsichord was the most important instrument in opera, which attests to Handel’s skill as a player. His experience of many contemporary operas encouraged him to write several of his own. Handel’s stay in Hamburg whetted his appetite for opera and he soon realized that he would do well to seek knowledge of that genre at its source. Accordingly, he set out for Italy in the autumn of 1706. During the next four years he stayed in Florence, Rome, Venice and other cities, hearing the music of his foremost Italian colleagues an becoming acquainted with many of them in person. These years were vitally important to Handel’s development as a musician.

In Italy he learned the art of writing appealing and expressive melodies, acquired the dramatic sensibility that would serve him so well as a composer of operas and oratorios, and attained an understanding of orchestral composition. As his biographer Winton Dean put it, Handel “arrive in Italy a gifted but crude composer with an uncertain command of form, and left it a polished and fully-equipped artist.” In 1710, at age 25, Handel returned to Germany, obtaining a position as court composer to Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover. It seems, however, that the young musician already had his sights set on London, where Italian opera was enjoying a sudden surge of popularity, and he managed to obtain an immediate leave of absence in order to visit England. Handle arrived in London in September 1710, and scored a conspicuous success with his opera Rinaldo. Although he could not have know it at the time, this would be merely the first of many triumphs he would achieve in the English capital.

Handel soon returned to Hanover in 1711, but he had found the cosmopolitan atmosphere and busy music life of London so much to his liking that he obtained leave from his duties in Hanover to visit England a second time in 1712. Although he agreed to return to Hanover before long, Handel now settled into a comfortable routine in his new home. By day he composed operas for the London theaters; during the evenings he consorted with the cream of English society, including the royal family. The country’s ruler, Queen Anne, showed her approval by granting Handel an annual stipend and commissioning him to compose works for her birthday celebration, the signing of an important peace accord (the Treaty of Utrecht) and other national occasions. In August 1714 Queen Anne died leaving no heir and by an ironic twist of fate the English crown now passed to the House of Hanover. Handel had by this time effectively abandoned his post in Hanover and taken up permanent residence in England. We do not know whether the truant composer ignored calls to return to Germany, or, indeed, what the state of his relationship with Georg Ludwig was at this time.

If it was strained, he may well have felt some discomfort when, in September, Elector Georg Ludwig arrived in London to be crowned King George the First. According to a widely circulated but undocumented story, Handel was initially afraid to appear at court. Eventually, however, he managed to repair his relationship with England’s new king, for he enjoyed royal favor for many years. In fact, Handel became for all practical purposes England’s national composer. He composed anthems for the coronation of King George II, for the wedding of Prince Frederick, and for the funeral of Queen Catherine. His oratorio Judas Macabeus commemorated the crown’s victory over the rebellion led by Prince Charles in 1746. When King George ordered a huge pyro-technical display in a London park to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749, Handel wrote his Music for the Royal Fireworks. Through these and other efforts, Handel became something of an institution in his adopted homeland, his music an expression of patriotic pride at the height of the British empire. Despite these occasional commissions to write public ceremonial music or works for royal entertainment, the theater remained the center of Handel’s professional life.

Here his natural business sense served him well, for he was as much an entrepreneur as an artist in the opera house. He assumed responsibility for the production of his works and shared in the box office profits. But by the late 1720s the English started to tire of the contrived plots and outlandish theatricality that characterized opera during the Baroque era. As attendance at his presentations dwindled, so did Handel’s finances, and in 1737 the company that had been producing his operas in London collapsed in bankruptcy. By this time, however, Handel had begun to compose a new type of work, the oratorio. This choral work was less costly to present than opera yet had the potential to appeal to a broader audience drawn form the rising English middle class. Handel’s oratorios related classical legends and Biblical stories, the latter often told through extracts from the scriptures. The most famous of these works is, of course, Messiah, which Handel wrote in 1741. Although universally revered today, Messiah initially incurred the wrath of religious conservatives who objected to its portrayal of Christ in the secular setting of the concert hall. But the composer finally outmaneuvered his zealous critics.

Beginning in 1750, he led annual performances of the oratorio for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital, a respected London charity. This gesture won Handel general admiration and secured for Messiah the beginning of the great esteem and affection it enjoys to this day. Despite his celebrity, Handel was in many ways a very private person, As a result, out knowledge of his personality and character is somewhat obscure. Certainly he was pragmatic and worldly, as the enterprising nature of his opera and oratorio presentations attests. But he also reportedly fell into a “divine rapture”, as one of his contemporaries describe, when composing Messiah. He could be stubborn and angry when provoked, but he could also be remarkably generous. Acquaintances often remarked on his dry and rather sharp with, and on his voracious appetite and love of good food and drink. Handel never married, and his relationship with the fair sex remains a mystery. While in Italy he reportedly fell in love with a certain soprano. An English contemporary observed that “his Amours were rather of short duration.” Music, it seems, served as his one true companion.

Though with failing eyesight in his later years, Handel continued to present oratorios to London up until the last year of his life. He died a celebrated figure in 1759. In accordance with his well, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Some 3,000 people attended his funeral. Unlike his great contemporary, J.S. Bach, Handel’s reputation did not fade after his death but instead grew ever brighter. His oratorios and orchestral music continued to be performed in England and elsewhere for the remainder of the 18th century. Both Mozart and Beethoven knew Handel’s works and admired them. During the 19th century, he alone among musicians of his era continued to reach a large audience. Today Handel’s music is more widely performed than ever, and the composer stands beside Bach as music’s defining genius during the Baroque era. The Water Music Handel composed the collection of orchestral pieces known as the Water Music for a truly royal entertainment: an excursion on the Thames river hosted by England’s King George I. Handels earliest biographers proposed that the composer was in disfavor with the monarch until the Water Music restored him to His Majesty’s graces.

This seems at least plausible but unlikely. When he took up permanent residence in England in 1712, Handel was still engaged as music director at the court of Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover. He had obtained leave to visit London with the understanding that he would return to Hanover within a reasonable time. However, Handel’s rising fortunes in England gave him little reason to leave, and his stay in London became a matter not of weeks or months but of years. When the English crown passed to the House of Hanover in 1714, Handel’s nominal employer arrived in London to be crowned King George I. The story that Handel was subsequently afraid to appear at court has acquired the force of legend. This story claims that a reconciliation finally occurred due to the King’s delight with the music Handel produced for a river party in August, 1715. However, there is little evidence to support it. No newspaper reports or other documentation or royal barge excursion in 1715 now exists. Besides, George I attended performances of Handel’s works shortly after he arrive in England, and he readily renewed the stipend Queen Anne had granted the composer before he death.

Certainly he had more important concerns than holding a grudge against a mere musician. It seems more likely, then, that the Water Music was first heard on the evening of July 17, 1717. On this date the Kind did hose a river trip, and this event has been amply documented. One report comes from a Prussian diplomat stationed in London, who offered these details: “About eight in the evening the King repaired to his barge, into which were admitted the Duchess of Bolton, Countess Godolphin, Madame de Kilmanseck, Mrs. Ware and the Earl of Orkney, [and] the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber in Waiting. Next to the King’s barge was that of the musicians, about fifty in number, who played on all kinds of instruments, to wit trumpets, horns, oboes, bassoons, flutes, recorders, violins and basses….The music had been composed specially by the famous Mr. Handel, a native of Halle and His Majesty’s principal court composer. His Majesty approved of it to be repeated three times in all, although each performance lasted an hour - namely twice before supper and once after supper.

The [weather in the]evening was all that could be desired for the festivity, the number of barges and above all of boats filled with people desirous of hearing was beyond counting…….The concert cost Baron Kilmanseck L150 for the musicians alone.” The music Handel assembled to serenade the King and his party as they floated on the Thames consisted of a loose selection of overtures, fanfares, dances and instrumental airs. Precisely how the composer arranged these movements, and in what order, is uncertain, for the Water Music was published in different short excerpts over the course of the next 50 years. But the music itself – its instrumentation and the keys in which the various movements appear – suggests a grouping of three suites, and this has become the accepted format for performing the work.. The Water Music opens with a full-blown overture that adheres to Handel’s typical pattern of a ceremonious introduction in slow tempo leading to a contrapuntal Allegro. There follows a particularly fine example of Handel’s instrumental aria, its melodic lines and harmonies combining dignity and tenderness in equal measure. The second suite also begins with a prelude.

This movement, however, consists entirely of elaborate fanfares featuring the brass instruments. Nearly all the other movements are dances. They feature the characteristic rhythms of the minuet, the bourree, the hornpipe and others well known to the composer’s listeners. Modern recordings of the Water Music may offer just a limited selection of movements collected as a single suite; the accompanying recording includes all three suites in full. The Baroque Era in Music The period from approximately 1600 to 1750 has become known to historians of music as the Baroque era. Initially, the term “Baroque” just described a particular style of music, one marked by ornate melodic turns, brilliant instrumental sound and extravagant displays of virtuosity. While some of these traits do serve to distinguish the music of this era from the earlier Renaissance and subsequent Classical periods, music from the Baroque era as a whole is quite varied in character and texture. Much of it presents a beguiling sweetness, with relatively simple textures and song-like melodies. The Baroque era saw the rise of several developments that have profoundly shaped the course of Western music over the last three centuries and more.

Perhaps the most conspicuous of these was the development of two important types of composition: opera and orchestral music. Opera originated in Italy at the start of the seventeenth century and gradually became a favorite entertainment in all the major European capitals. Orchestral music developed somewhat later, following the perfection of the violin, viola and cello by Italian craftsman, and the redesign of the flute, oboe and bassoon in France. Originally, composers used the orchestra in connection with opera or ballet, as well as for special church music. But by about 1700 orchestral music had achieved an independent status, and such music began to be head outside of any theatrical or ecclesiastical context. The first important forms of orchestral composition were the concerto, developed chiefly in Italy, and the danced suite, which was cultivated especially in France and Germany. The development of concert music for orchestra coincided with the culmination of the Baroque era during the first half of the eighteenth century. This provided a golden age for music, one whose luster was brightened by many fine composers. Among the greatest of them were Vivaldi, Bach, Scarlatti, Telemann and, by no means least, Handel.

The Missing Details of Baroque Compositions Baroque composers left out many of the details that composers of later eras routinely included in their scores. For example, an important feature of Baroque music is the use of embellishment or ornamentation, but these were rarely written out in the score. Composers during the Baroque era permitted and even expected performers to add their own impromptu decorative melodic details to a composition. The conventions for doing this were widely known by musicians in the early eighteenth century and so were not written out by the composer. It was particularly understood that whenever a musical phrase or passage was repeated, the second statement should be embellished in some fashion. In a broader sense, Baroque composers gave only very general directions for performing their music. For example, they would not which instruments were to play a passage of music, but not necessarily when individual instruments were to be played. They gave only a general sense of tempo and little about dynamics – that is, where the music was loud or soft, or about basic phrasing – where the music builds up and fades away. And it was often left to the performers and accepted convention whether a note was played long or short.

These specific details in modern performances Baroque music are prepared by the conductor, an editor, or the performer. So two performances of the same piece by a Baroque composer can often be very different. For this recording, Maestro Schwarz prepared the edition. Handel’s Orchestra and the Water Music The orchestra for which Handel wrote the Water Music varied substantially from the modern symphony orchestra. Instruments we take for granted in the music of Brahms, Tchaikovsky or Ravel – clarinets, trombones and others – were not yet widely in use in the early 18th century. Handel had essentially three types of instruments at his disposal: strings; brass (specifically, horns and trumpets); and woodwinds (namely, flutes, oboes and bassoons). He evidently conceived these instrumental groups as having distinct characters, and he often used them as separate choirs rather than seeking to blend them. The string section forms the backbone of Handel’s orchestra – not surprising, since it was the core ensemble for all orchestras during the Baroque period. In fact, many Baroque orchestras were only made up of strings.

In addition to the familiar violins, violas, cellos and basses, the string section included harpsichord. That keyboard instrument provided accompaniment to all instrumental music during the Baroque era. So ubiquitous was its use that composers did not need to specify it; musicians simply understood that it should be included in performance and often devised parts for it extemporaneously from the orchestral note. Among the woodwinds, the reed instruments (oboes and bassoons) also appear in all three suites. Frequently Handel treats these instruments as a choir. In addition, he occasionally casts a single oboe in a solo role; the second movement of the first suite, for example, presents an aria for the oboe with discreet accompaniment from the strings. Apart from the strings and reed instruments, each of the three Water Music suites features different instrumental colors. The first suite makes conspicuous use of the French horns and is sometimes called the “horn suite” for its prominent use of that instrument. In fact Handel’s Water Music was one of the very first compositions to use French horns, and much of their music here recalls their earlier association with hunting calls. Handel’s second Water Music suite uses trumpets to stirring effect.

The third suite abandons the brass instruments in favor of flutes, whose timbre imparts a sweet and intimate tone to this portion of the work. By treating the several families of instruments as distinct choirs, Handel was able to produce antiphonal effects – calls and responses between different groups of players. Moreover, the juxtaposition of contrasting tone colors was ideally suited for outdoor performance. In scoring the Water Music, Handel perfectly calculated the setting in which it was to be performed, and one delights in imagining how these pieces must have sounded to their first audience, floating on the Thames on that warm summer evening in 1717. Handel's water music at The King's School, Worcester - StudyBlue StudyBlue Handel's dates of birth and death 1685 - 1759 Why had King George I succeeded to the throne and why was his position delicate? He was a protestant He was a foreigner and a very distant relation of the late Queen Anne, who had died in 1714. Advertisement ) For what event was the Water Music composed and when was it first performed?

The music was composed to accompany King George I and his entourage down the Thames on a boat trip arranged to make him more visible and popular, as part of a summer of royal public events with this aim. 17th July 1717 How many musicians played the Water Music? About 50, with woodwind and possibly horns doubled to produce an unusually rich and powerful tutti. What was the reception of the Water Music? The King liked it so much he insisted it be played 3 times and then added an annual payment of £200 to Handel's current £200 pension. What is an orchestral suite and which suite are we studying? A set of dances and instrumental arias differing in character but unified by key, preceded by an orchestral overture Handel's water music suite no. 2 What were the dances in the Water Music? Stylised dances - i.e. traditional dances adapted to be listened to rather than danced to, sharing many features such as metre, rhythm patterns and structure, but with a more refined sound. What are the movements? Allegro, Alla Hornpipe, Menuet, Lentement, Bourée What key, instrumentation and tempo do they have?

D major, modulating to B minor Oboes, bassoons, Horns, Trumpets, Violins (2 parts), Violas, Cellos/Basses (continuo bass) All have a lively tempo apart from Lentement What instruments do the oboes often double and give an example of something else they do? Violins 1 and 2. Play on their own with the bassoons (eg. mvt 4 bar 19); support the brass section. Give an example of oboes not doubling more complicated violin writing. In bars 22 - 24 of Alla Hornpipe, all 3 violin parts play a part with melodic and rhythmic interest, in crotchets and quavers, while the oboes simply play the crotchet and minim accompaniment of the rest of the ripieno. What does the bassoon usually do in baroque music and what is unusual about its use in the first movement of the Water Music? Double the bass line to give it more attack Combined with horns and cellos/basses What was unusual about Handel's use of horns?

He was the first in England to use the horn in art music rather than in the context of hunting, its usual use. This was contributed to by his German background as horn players at the Saxon court of Dresden were the most advanced in Europe. Why did Handel include horns in Suite no. 2, but not in nos. 1 and 3? Create a texture that could carry better outdoors. Royal sound. What new woodwind instrument did Handel include in the Water Music? Transverse flute, which was popular in France and Germany but not in England, recorders (known as flutes or German flutes) were popular - shows continental background. Advertisement How did Handel solve the problem of the horns and natural trumpets having limited notes (both in D)? He based melodic material around the first 5 - 6 degrees of D major scale, notes they could play He left the brass out when the music modulated away from D major He added essential notes (eg. C#, the leading note) that could not be played by the brass in through doubling by other instruments Used varied rhythmic ideas to add interest What do we see extensively between the horns and trumpets?

Dialogue between the instruments, creating contrasts of registers and timbre How was the style of string instrument playing in Handel's time different to later (4 points)? Gut strings were quieter Lighter bowing More use of open strings What two instruments were omitted from performances of the Water Music, why, and how did Handel make sure it was not necessary to have a harpsichord? Timpani and Harpsichord Impractical to use on boat Made sure harmonies were filled out in the score, without needing a harpsichord to improvise over the chords to achieve this What are the main roles of the violins in the Water Music? Violin 1 has the melody line, usually highest part of texture. Violin 2 plays second highest line, usually playing homorhythmically with Violin 1 in unison, octaves, thirds or sixths. Give examples of Handel's writing for violins in two separate movement.

Allegro begins with violins playing identical line in bars 2 -5, while Alla Hornpipe begins with Violins 2 and 3 doubling Violin 1 in thirds and fourths in bars 1 - 5, although with some ornamentation in Violin I only, e.g. a 7-6 suspension in quavers in last beat of bar 4. What technique is not featured in the Handel Water Music which is found in the other classical set works? Double-stopping. What is the role of the violas in the Water Music, giving an example? Fill out harmony between upper parts and bass line, usually with more rhythmic similarity to the bass line. E.g. in bars 5 - 11 of Alla Hornpipe, violas mostly play in homorhythm with bass line and bassoons, but while bassoons double bass line exactly violas fill out harmony by playing different notes of chords, and also have their own separate rhythm in bar 7. How is the bass line played by the cellos and basses in the Water Music? Always doubled in octaves What is the difference in dynamics between the Handel and the Beethoven?

No dynamic markings in the Handel (not the style at the time), although dynamic contrasts were sometimes implied by writing, whereas Beethoven uses lots of specific dynamics * The material on this site is created by StudyBlue users. StudyBlue is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by the academic institution or instructor. Words From Our Students "StudyBlue is great for studying. I love the study guides, flashcards and quizzes. So extremely helpful for all of my classes!" Alice , Arizona State University "I'm a student using StudyBlue, and I can 100% say that it helps me so much. Study materials for almost every subject in school are available in StudyBlue. It is so helpful for my education!" Tim , University of Florida "StudyBlue provides way more features than other studying apps, and thus allows me to learn very quickly!??I actually feel much more comfortable taking my exams after I study with this app. It's amazing!" Jennifer , Rutgers University "I love flashcards but carrying around physical flashcards is cumbersome and simply outdated.

StudyBlue is exactly what I was looking for!" Justin , LSU George Frederick Handel | Biography & History | AllMusic George Frederick Handel Biography by Rovi Staff An internationally known German composer and keyboard virtuoso, Handel has written more than 40 Italian operas, chamber music, church music. google+ Artist Biography by Rovi Staff Most music lovers have encountered George Frederick Handel through holiday-time renditions of the Messiah's "Hallelujah" chorus. And many of them know and love that oratorio on Christ's life, death, and resurrection, as well as a few other greatest hits like the orchestral Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music, and perhaps Judas Maccabeus or one of the other English oratorios. Yet his operas, for which he was widely known in his own time, are the province mainly of specialists in Baroque music, and the events of his life, even though they reflected some of the most important musical issues of the day, have never become as familiar as the careers of Bach or Mozart . Perhaps the single word that best describes his life and music is "cosmopolitan": he was a German composer, trained in Italy, who spent most of his life in England.

Handel was born in the German city of Halle on February 23, 1685. His father noted but did not nurture his musical talent, and he had to sneak a small keyboard instrument into his attic to practice. As a child he studied music with Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow , organist at the Liebfrauenkirche, and for a time he seemed destined for a career as a church organist himself. After studying law briefly at the University of Halle, Handel began serving as organist on March 13, 1702, at the Domkirche there. Dissatisfied, he took a post as violinist in the Hamburg opera orchestra in 1703, and his frustration with musically provincial northern Germany was perhaps shown when he fought a duel the following year with the composer Matheson over the accompaniment to one of Matheson's operas. In 1706 Handel took off for Italy, then the font of operatic innovation, and mastered contemporary trends in Italian serious opera.

He returned to Germany to become court composer in Hannover, whose rulers were linked by family ties with the British throne; his patron there, the Elector of Hannover, became King George I of England. English audiences took to his 1711 opera Rinaldo, and several years later Handel jumped at the chance to move to England permanently. He impressed King George early on with the Water Music of 1716, written as entertainment for a royal boat outing. Through the 1720s Handel composed Italian operatic masterpieces for London stages: Ottone, Serse (Xerxes), and other works often based on classical stories. His popularity was dented, though, by new English-language works of a less formal character, and in the 1730s and 1740s Handel turned to the oratorio, a grand form that attracted England's new middle-class audiences. Not only Messiah but also Israel in Egypt, Samson, Saul, and many other works established him as a venerated elder of English music. The oratorios displayed to maximum effect Handel 's melodic gift and the sense of timing he brought to big choral numbers.

Among the most popular of all the oratorios was Judas Maccabeus, composed in 32 days in 1746. Handel presented the oratorio six times during its first season and about 40 times before his death 12 years later, conducting it 30 times himself. In 1737, Handel suffered a stroke, which caused both temporary paralysis in his right arm and some loss of his mental faculties, but he recovered sufficiently to carry on most normal activity. He was urged to write an autobiography, but never did. Blind in old age, he continued to compose. He died in London on April 14, 1759.

Beethoven thought Handel the greatest of all his predecessors; he once said, "I would bare my head and kneel at his grave." Music History 102 Born: Halle, February 23, 1685 Died: London, April 14, 1759 Born in the same year and country as Johann Sebastian Bach , young Georg Friederich Händel (the original German spelling of his name) was playing the violin, harpsichord, oboe, and organ by the age of eleven. Drawn to the theater from an early age, Handel went to Hamburg in 1703 and began composing Italian operas. From 1706 to 1710, he sojourned in Italy where he met both Domenico Scarlatti and Arcangelo Corelli , and came under the influence of Italian melody. Upon his return to Germany, Handel became Kapellmeister to the Elector Georg of Hanover. Unhappy with his duties there, however, Handel made a trip later in 1710 to London, where Italian opera was fast becoming all the rage.

He produced an opera to great acclaim in London and, having tasted success, reluctantly returned to Germany. Obtaining permission to return to England in 1712, Handel once again composed several operas as well as some ceremonial music for Queen Anne. The Queen gave the young composer an annual stipend of £200 in hopes of keeping him in London as court composer. Handel never did return to Hanover. He remained in England for the rest of his life, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1726 and anglecizing his name to George Frideric Handel. A potentially embarrassing situation arose for the composer when Queen Anne died in 1714 and was succeeded by King George I -- the very Georg of Hanover to whose court Handel had never returned! But relations between the two must have remained amicable, for Handel's royal stipend was doubled before too long, on top of which he was granted another stipend from the Princess of Wales.

Throughout his career, Handel continually composed much wonderful instrumental music, including many fine organ concertos, a good amount of keyboard music, and celebratory music such as the suite of airs and dances known as the Water Music, written to accompany a royal barge trip down the Thames in 1717. There is also the Musick for the Royal Fireworks, composed in 1749 to celebrate the peace of Aix-la-Chappelle, which had been declared the previous year. Following the model of Corelli, Handel also completed two sets of concerti grossi, some of the finest examples of the genre from the late Baroque, an example of which is the Concerto Grosso, Op. 6 no. 5. Of course, he was obliged to compose much choral music for the court, too. Among these works are the anthems written for the Duke of Chandos, various odes, and the four majestic Coronation anthems from 1727. But these compositions were incidental to Handel's main reason for having settled in England: the composition and production of Italian opera for a fashionable and eager audience.

And produce them he did, becoming as much involved with the business end of things as with the creative. Beginning with Rinaldo in 1711, Handel rapidly composed over forty operas between 1712 and 1741. Many of these met with great success and brought Handel a great deal of fame and money. Some of the more famous of these operas are Giulio Cesare (1724), Alcina (1735), and Serse (1738). Many of these scores contain much fine music, and an aria such as "Or la tromba" from Rinaldo illustrates the pomp, grandeur, and vocal virtuosity to be found in the Italian operas of the late Baroque. Yet as dramatic entertainment these works fail to stand up today, mostly because of the ridiculously stilted librettos to which they are set. Indeed, even at that time it was recognized that some changes had to be made, and within the next thirty years, Christoph von Gluck began implementing those changes.

Although Handel's operas were immensely popular when they were written, by the 1730s public interest in opera had faded considerably, and Handel ended up losing a great deal of money continually attempting to find further success in the genre. Eager to find a new audience, Handel turned to the composition of oratorio: dramatic, non-staged works for the concert hall, usually with a great deal of choral music, and most often with a Biblical subject, the text in English. His first such composition (Esther) had been written in 1732, and its success was followed with other oratorios. By 1740 Handel had already composed two of his greatest works in the genre, Saul, and Israel in Egypt. Handel infused these Biblical stories with the melody, majesty, and drama he had previously lavished on his operas, and such works as Solomon, Jephtha, Samson, Joshua, Israel in Egypt, and Judas Maccabeus brought the composer ever more fame and recognition.

But Handel's genius is nowhere more evident than in the sublime music he provided for his most famous oratorio, Messiah, which had its premiere in Dublin in 1741. Its success was immediate and resounding, and the work has never been out of the repertory since. The incredible successes of Handel's oratorios made a deep and lasting impression on English music for the next century, and no native-born musicians were able to gain a foothold with the public due to their continuing popularity. Not until the Nationalist movement of the late eighteenth century would England produce any composers of lasting international stature. In 1751, Handel began having trouble with his eyes. He endured three operations on his eyes at the hands of the same surgeon who had unsuccessfully operated on Johann Sebastian Bach , and the results were the same -- complete blindness. Handel kept performing though, and died a week after suffering a collapse following a performance of Messiah in 1759. He was buried in state in Westminster Abbey. A biography of Handel was written the year after his death by the Reverend John Mainwaring -- the very first biography to be written of a composer.

Music History 102: a Guide to Western Composers and their music Designed, compiled and created by Robert Sherrane Water Music | suite by Handel | Britannica.com suite by Handel The Magic Flute Water Music, suite of short pieces for small orchestra by German-born English composer George Frideric Handel , known particularly for its highly spirited movements in dance form. Most of the pieces were originally intended for outdoor performance, and the work premiered on a barge on the River Thames , where it provided entertainment for a royal cruise hosted by King George I of England on July 17, 1717. Selections from the suite were published during Handel’s lifetime, but the entire collection did not come into print until 1788, nearly three decades after the composer’s death. When George I planned his barge party, he asked Handel to provide music in the form of an orchestral composition for about 50 musicians. Handel responded with Water Music, which, according to one eyewitness, engaged an ensemble of flutes , recorders , oboes , bassoons , trumpets , horns , violins , and basses .

(The observer made no mention of the timpani that are customarily included in contemporary performances, but percussion may have been added after the limiting factor of a barge-borne performance was eliminated.) The king was so delighted with the new work that he asked to hear it over and over—for a total of four performances, lasting about an hour apiece. George Frideric Handel. © iStockphoto/Thinkstock Because Water Music was assembled and published posthumously as a complete collection, the order in which the composer wished the various movements to be played remains uncertain. It is customary, however, to group the movements according to their keys and instrumentations, creating three shorter suites—in F major, in D major, and in G major. The groupings contain 5 to 10 movements of varying musical character, and, in some cases, distinct national provenance and social association. For example, the lilting waltz -time minuet and the lively duple-time bourrée were historically French dances; the minuet, however, was an aristocratic form, while the bourrée was known in both folk and courtly circles.

The bouncy duple-time hornpipe, with its intricate, often syncopated rhythms, was a dance of the British Isles . Other dance movements featured in Water Music include the sarabande , the gigue , and the rigaudon . Each of the three subsuites opens with a stately overture and concludes with a festive movement that, indeed, is reminiscent of the original performance context .

Question: For which king was Handel's Water Music composed?
Answer: George I